An Alberta Outfitter Offering Affordable Deer and Elk Hunts

Very affordable guided hunts for both free-range elk and whitetail deer are available in Alberta, and correspondent Dennis Dunn tells us about it this month with the following report on an outfitter in the Grande Prairie area. Enjoy! Alberta is known, of course, for producing big mule deer bucks, and many wall-hanger whitetails. Some of these hunts can get pretty pricey. However, if you travel as far north as Grande Prairie, you've left all mulies well to the south  along with the fancier outfitter prices that prevail in those more southern habitats. But trophy whitetails are still available. In late August, 2012, I made the easy two-day drive from Seattle to the home of Lowell Davis, owner of Alpine Outfitters, not far outside Grande Prairie. The archery-only season runs from August 25 through September 16, and I arrived just in time for a venison supper on August 28. Lowell showed me trail-camera photos of several nice bucks he'd been keeping track of for the past month. One non-typical buck in particular (whose velvet rack appeared to sport at least 18 points), managed to get us both pretty excited. Over the next four days, I spent every morning and evening in either a ground-blind or a tree-stand  hoping for a shot opportunity at that one special animal whose rack possessed so much "character." Davis' private land is a mixture of pasture, native woodlands, and cultivated crop fields of alfalfa, turnips, and pea vines. Not until the fourth evening of my hunt did the buck I had set my heart on finally show himself. Evidently he had gone into hiding for four days while getting rid of all his velvet. By the time he finally walked right under my stand as the sun was about to set, his horns were hard and polished. His unique rack allowed me to identify him instantly, and the 11-yard shot quickly ended his life. His official SCI score is 153 7/8. Most of the whitetail bucks Davis hunts will score in the spectrum of 150 to 190 SCI points. Average scores (year in, year out) are in the........(continued)